Anna B Savage Solo on an electric guitar, the English songwriter Anna B Savage has dealt in ruthless, self-lacerating confessionals, delivered in a tremulous, vehement contralto that brought drama to each phrase. Revealing her pain, she exorcised it. Anna B Savage only just released her debut album, “A Common Turn”, earlier this year, but she already performs like an incredible cult artist from yesteryear. Taking the stage at the British Music Embassy, Savage sounded raw and completely in her element, wielding and fluctuating her glaring contralto voice to staggering effect and performing without a backing band. Alongside rough guitar strums, her voice floated between jazzy and folky tones, but never settled neatly into either. Her quiet-loud dynamic was arresting, lending room for her deep, poetic lyricism—it honestly felt like you were watching a soon-to-be-influential singer/songwriter in a coffee shop from decades past. Her songs are fully realized, with a nuanced emotional perspective and a deep ache at their core, heightened by the liquidy rhythms of her near-operatic voice. With gorgeous imperfections and a unique sound, Savage’s set was positively masterful.
The debut album of London based singer-songwriter Anna B Savage! Her 2015 EP was deeply intriguing and quickly drew the attention of Father John Misty and later Jenny Hval, both of whom brought Savage out on European tours.
Anna B Savage’s first full-length record A Common Turn is question mark music. Her songs are heavy with unanswered queries, with dilemmas and insecurities, or often just with wondering.
Savage’s voice is endlessly warm, but producer William Doyle (East India Youth) consistently finds the iron in it. Even the darkest moments in this music don’t stick in their devastation, though – Savage’s fire burns too brightly. Her voice can drop to a whisper, but then it will open all the way up in a flash flood of cavernous guitar, echoes, and swelling strings that expand and then vanish just as suddenly as they arrived
Savage’s music is deeply vulnerable, without being submissive. She lays claim to her own fragility, and the stories she tells are of taking up space, finding connections, and owning the power in not knowing all the answers. Hers are songs for anyone who thinks hard, feels deeply, and asks big questions. Produced by William Doyle (East India Youth), A Common Turn presents us a nest of fully-formed and room-filling artistry.
Anna B Savage’s debut Album “A Common Turn”, out on City Slang Records.
“A Common Turn”, the spellbindingly profound and deliciously honest debut album from the London-based artist, Anna B Savage. Produced with fellow Dinker William Doyle, this really feels like quite a special release, there is such power in her, even when she whispers. In a week of epic releases and massive noises, it was those whispers that really blew our minds,
The debut album of London based singer-songwriter Anna B Savage! Her 2015 EP was deeply intriguing and quickly drew the attention of Father John Misty and later Jenny Hval, both of whom brought Savage out on European tours. Anna B Savage’s first full-length record A Common Turn is question mark music. Her songs are heavy with unanswered queries, with dilemmas and insecurities, or often just with wondering.
Savage’s voice is endlessly warm, but producer William Doyle (East India Youth) consistently finds the iron in it. Even the darkest moments in this music don’t stick in their devastation, though – Savage’s fire burns too brightly. Her voice can drop to a whisper, but then it will open all the way up in a flash flood of cavernous guitar, echoes, and swelling strings that expand and then vanish just as suddenly as they arrived. “Baby Grand’ is part of Anna B Savage’s debut Album “A Common Turn”, out the 29th January 2021 on City Slang Records.
Savage’s music is deeply vulnerable, without being submissive. She lays claim to her own fragility, and the stories she tells are of taking up space, finding connections, and owning the power in not knowing all the answers. Hers are songs for anyone who thinks hard, feels deeply, and asks big questions.
Produced by William Doyle (East India Youth), “A Common Turn” presents us a nest of fully-formed and room-filling artistry.
The latest apple of our eye, Anna B Savage, is putting out her debut via City Slang Records in a couple of weeks, and I can personally say that there hasn’t been a debut I’ve been this excited about in quite some time. The stunning video for the London singer’s unbelievably vulnerable first single off of “A Common Turn”, “Chelsea Hotel #3,” has been on a near loop at my house since it came out nearly a year ago, and its follow-ups have been just as arresting. In addition to having the privilege of pressing A Common Turn to vinyl,
The London based singer-songwriter Anna B Savage makes question-mark-music, captivating and powerful, navigating various recurring themes including female sexuality, self-doubt … and birds. Often questioning the validity of her own thoughts and feelings, her songs are heavy with unanswered queries. Is this even real? Do we have what I think we have? How did I get to this point? Is anyone listening? Or the record’s opening and most potent question: “Do I understand this?”.
Yet these questions are buoyed by her ability to conjure melodies and lyrics so devastatingly candid, vulnerable and honest, that somehow still manage to be bewitchingly charming, utterly modern and often funny. ‘A Common Turn.’ “For me, ‘a common turn’ is those moments of decision where you think ‘I’m not taking this anymore, whether it’s the way someone else is treating you or the what you’re treating yourself” Savage explains.
From a young age, Savage has also always been surrounded by music. The daughter of two classical singers, Savage spent her childhood birthdays in the green room at the Royal Albert Hall, as her birthday falls on the day Bach died and her parents were booked to play the Bach Proms each year. Her 2015 EP was deeply intriguing as a project, it contained four songs, all of which paired Savage’s deep, rich voice with lyrics rife with insecurity and unfinished business and was released with very little accompanying information about the artist.
The success of the EP caught Savage off guard, triggering a form of imposter syndrome, stifling her writing and ultimately affecting her mental health. At her lowest point Savage wasn’t sure if she could continue making music. At one stage her well-meaning parents started to cut out arts administration jobs for her and put them on the bed for when she arrived home.
In the five years between her first release and this forthcoming one, Savage ended the bad relationship mentioned previously (“I was so small by the end of it”), took up odd jobs, moved across the world twice, got herself a lot of therapy and eventually built herself from the ground up again. “I sat in the sun and read, and I ran my book club, and I went swimming in the Ladies Pond, and I went on trips, and I got drunk, started smoking again and going to parties, and I started dancing again and seeing my friends and, most miraculous of all, I started to like myself.”
For the last three years, focused and reenergised, Savage wrote music for her debut album, stitching together influences and references “One month I printed out all the lyrics, blu-tacked them to my wall, and drew lines between each corresponding idea. Making sure I’d lyrically covered all the themes I wanted to, linking ideas, deleting repeats, and making me look like a literary serial killer”. The album is littered with personal and cultural references (Rocky Horror Picture Show, the Spice Girls, female pleasure, mental health, and a ceramic owl mug by Scottish alt-rock legend Edwyn Collins, among others), all of which are now sewn into her music like talismans.
Savage got in touch with William Doyle, (FKA East India Youth – 2014 Mercury Prize nominee)’ having seen his social media post asking artists to contact him if they wanted to experiment together. From their first meeting, William provided ambitious yet elegant production to the demos Anna brought him, and ultimately gave a definitive shape to the record she had at one point deemed officially impossible to finish. Theirs is a blending of earth and industry, of human feeling and mechanized deconstruction of expectations and barriers. As a pair, they were able to make a record that is, in Savage’s words, “about learning, adapting, growing, being earnest and trying really f***ing hard.”
Savage’s music is deeply vulnerable, without being submissive. The subject matter could weigh these songs down, but instead they soar as she lays claim to her own fragility. There’s an intoxicating catharsis woven through the album and the stories she tells are of taking up space, finding connections, and owning the power in not knowing all the answers. Hers are songs for anyone who thinks hard, feels deeply, and asks big questions.
During the years since the release of her debut EP, Savage has also been making a film with two collaborators. The film can be read as in conversation with this album. More details of that will be released at a later date.
“As mentioned in Chelsea Hotel #3, I’m done with being ashamed in any way of taking ownership of my own pleasure. This whole album is about questioning, exploration and trying really fucking hard. Hopefully a vibrator is a good companion for most of these things. To sum it up in two words: wank more.” –Anna B Savage
Anna B Savage is a London singer-songwriter and musician. Her songs are stark, skeletal paintings of moods and reflection, using a palette of mainly voice and guitar. They are candid if not entirely confessional, feeling like a window into an eloquent yet unflinchingly written diary – snapshots of experience suffused with a raw, unresolved nerve. Most prominent is her voice – strong and sonorous, yet with a vulnerability that feels as if it is in the same room with you.
Corncrakes is part of Anna B Savage’s debut Album “A Common Turn”, out the 29th January 2021 on City Slang Records .
The Fat Angel Sings 